Dave Jones rues Cardiff City's striker shortage

By William Johnson

12:01AM BST 13 Aug 2007

Cardiff City (0) 0 Stoke City (1) 1

Twenty minutes before the start of the new season at Ninian Park the buzz circulating a near-capacity crowd concerned two of Cardiff City's absent strikers, Michael Chopra, who left for £5 million in the summer, and Robbie Fowler, recruited on a free transfer as a potential replacement.

The image of Chopra celebrating a dramatic debut goal for Sunderland with almost the last kick of their Premier League fixture was flashed on to the big screen for appreciative Cardiff supporters moments after they were informed that former England international Fowler was not yet ready to take the field. The two absentees left Cardiff woefully short of firepower, to the frustration of their manager Dave Jones.

Jones feels that selling Chopra for such a high fee has had the flip-side of hampering his recruitment drive elsewhere, with selling clubs asking for correspondingly inflated prices for their players.

"We know we need more strength up front," said Jones after resisting the temptation to select Fowler, whose fitness he believes is 12 days behind the rest of his squad. "But it has not been easy."

Jones, deflated by a soft winning goal by visiting Stoke City central defender Ryan Shawcross, maintained that Fowler was suffering from a lack of fitness rather than the thigh injury put forward as the reason for the former Liverpool idol's unavailability.

"I didn't want to risk picking him today if it was going to mean putting him out for another month," he said. "And if I had named him on the bench there would have been a desire to send him on."

Jones may wish he had taken that substitution option as he assessed his team's defeat by a Stoke side who came to contain and became even more resolute after Shawcross, a loan signing from Manchester United, volleyed in a deflected corner from Rory Delap.

Fowler might then have been free to take a penalty three minutes from the end after Steve Maclean's shirt was pulled by the Stoke goalscorer.

Even a hobbling Fowler would surely have deployed his deadly left foot to better effect than Maclean, whose spot kick bounced tamely in front of Steve Simonsen. The visiting goalkeeper made a comfortable save before reacting superbly to prevent Maclean scoring from the follow-up.

Simonsen had already claimed man-of-the-match honours with crucial saves from Trevor Sinclair and Joe Ledley in an opening fixture of few clear-cut chances.